Welcome to the CC Translation Project!

Please note this is an evolving project and we welcome feedback.

This is the main portal for projects translating the suite of six CC licenses and the CC0 Public Domain Dedication.

If a CC license deed is not yet available in your language, we recommend translating that first. For information on translating CC license deeds, visit Translating CC Deeds.

If you are interested in translating the licenses or other legal tools, please see the Legal Code Translation Policy.

Translations Generally

Creative Commons supports two types of linguistic translations of its licenses and CC0: official and unofficial. All official translations of legal code are conducted according to the Legal Code Translation Policy. (For version 3.0 of the licenses, CC supports unofficial translations only. These are not suitable for adoption but are provided for information purposes only.)

Beginning with version 4.0, CC will support official linguistic translations of its six (6) core licenses. CC will begin accepting requests to translate the 4.0 licenses after those licenses are finalized for launch, in late 2013. Please note that translations (whether official or unofficial) involve linguistic translation only—they do not adapt the licenses or CC0 to account for local law. As of December 2012, CC supports official translations of CC0 version 1.0.

Please see the Legal Code Translation Policy for more information on how to start a project to translate CC0 or the CC licenses officially into your local language. All legal code translation projects must be approved by Creative Commons in advance. Those projects for which approval has been given are listed below with links to the relevant project page. CC's policy is to support a single official translation into any particular language, absent a compelling reason otherwise. Please do not start a legal code translation project without first contacting Creative Commons.

CC0 Translations

Approved CC0 Translation Projects

[To come]

Unofficial CC0 Translation Projects

• [sq] Albanian
• [zh-tw] Chinese (Mandarin)
• [id] Indonesian
• [it] Italian
• [fr] French
• [ru] Russian

License Translations

Version 3.0 License Translation Projects

Unofficial (only)

• [sq] Albanian
• [id] Indonesian
• [ru] Russian CC-BY only
• [uk] Ukrainian CC-BY only

Version 4.0 License Translation Projects

Official (only)

[To come]

All Translation Projects

If you do not see your language here, please contact CC HQ at affiliate-program@creativecommons.org before starting. Thank you.

• [ar] Arabic
• [sq] Albanian
• [zy] Chinese
• [id] Indonesian
• [it] Italian
• [fr] French
• [ms] Malay
• [ru] Russian
• [uk] Ukrainian

Note: Translations are to help people understand Creative Commons licenses by allowing them to read the licenses in their own languages. The only versions of the 3.0 international license suite (formerly known as the "unported" licenses) are the English language licenses -- no translations of the 3.0 international license suite are official. Please do not use translations of the 3.0 international licenses -- licensors should not link to or otherwise identify any of the unofficial translations referenced from this page.

Unofficial Translation Process for 3.0 License Suite

Note: CC does not recommend new translation projects for the version 3.0 licenses at this time due to the versioning to 4.0. The information provided below is for reference purposes only.

Who: Translation teams may be composed of one or more Affiliate Teams from the CC Affiliate Network and other volunteers within the Creative Commons Community who are interested in making the licenses accessible to a wider community. We strongly suggest having at least one lawyer fluent in both languages on the team because words can often have very specific legal meanings.

Step 1: The translation team works on a first draft, literal translation of the international CC licenses . Contact the team to find out how to contribute to the translation. Every translated license must include the following disclaimer, also translated:

"This is an unofficial translation of the Creative Commons license title into language. It was not published by Creative Commons and is not legally binding and should not be applied to your work. However, we hope that this translation will help language speakers understand the CC license title better."

Step 2: When a draft translation is ready, the translation team posts the draft on the CC wiki for public comment.

Step 3: The public comment period takes place, lasting anywhere from several weeks to several months depending on the engagement of the community. The comment period allows for conversations around word choice.

Step 4: Incorporate comments from the communities into a new draft.